A long time ago, after a Brevard County Manatees’ game in Daytona Beach, the team’s then-general manager, Buck Rogers, suggested we eat at a little Mexican restaurant in the area. Buck knows his Mexican-American food, and it probably was the best we’d had outside of Texas.

Now the family that owned that restaurant has opened another, La Catrina, in Cocoa Beach, and it is right up there with the original.

La Catrina is spacious but not huge, colorful but not gaudy, and has a diverse but not unmanageable menu that lists Mexican, not merely Tex-Mex, fare.

Service excels in the way it does when family members work in the business because they love it, not because they must. It's attentive, informed and intelligent; our server, an exceptionally bright high school student, told us he commutes from Spruce Creek every day “because we want it to be right.” And that, friends, formerly was referred to as “the American way.”

Anyway, although we heard the queso fundido ($7.99) was “the best ever,” he suggested traditional guacamole ($8.99), which easily is the best in the area. Served beautifully in a black crock, it’s a little smooth, a little chunky, with big bits of crunchy onions and tomatoes, a hint of lime and a little salt. Excellent.

So little time, so many choices, and with a low-carb diet to be fed, the usual and much-loved choices (anything involving tortillas) were off the table, and so we settled for steak and shrimp ($15.99) fajitas and pollo Margarita ($13.99).

Buy Photo

The shrimp and steak fajitas at La Catrina are made with quality marinated meat and big shrimp, onions and peppers that maintained their crisp freshness.(Photo: Lyn Dowling/For FLORIDA TODAY)

Fajitas were intended to be prepared and served as they are at La Catrina, with quality marinated meat and big shrimp, onions and peppers that maintained their crisp freshness, everything made flavorful by cilantro and lime and nothing terribly oily.

You know that out-of-the-packet-spicy taste some fajitas have? That is exactly what you don’t find at La Catrina.

The accompaniments were perfect, the beans exactly as expected. Frankly, its sole shortcoming was that the dish was a little short on the sour cream and cheese, but that could have been corrected in a sentence.

Buy Photo

The Pollo Margarita at La Catrina has a thin-sliced piece of white meat, grilled with lime and what was supposed to have been a touch of tequila(Photo: Lyn Dowling/For FLORIDA TODAY)

The chicken was similarly grand: a thin-sliced piece of white meat, grilled with lime and what was supposed to have been a touch of tequila, though that wasn’t obvious, served with onions, mushrooms and tomatoes. The mushrooms alone would have done the trick, gigantic and earthy-delicious as they were. Someone at LaCatrina knows his or her way around a produce market.

I also cheated and ate some rice. Spin in that plot. Dr. Atkins. It was fantastic.

Friends who ordered it said the flan was “exactly as we have it in Mexico,” which is another fine thing, but a fellow food writer said La Catrina’s pastel de piña ($6.99) pineapple upside-down cake, Mexican-style, is absolutely surpassing, with its ice cream, shaved coconut and caramel drizzle.

The cake went unordered because we were full, not because of the carbs, but next time, diet be damned, we’re going for Mexican-all, maybe even the gigantic La Parrilla ($26.99), which has a little of everything.

Other: Full bar with a variety of tequilas as well as specialty drinks and imported beers; children’s menu; family-style meals available

About our reviews

Restaurants are rated on a five-star system by FLORIDA TODAY’s reviewer. The reviews are the opinion of the reviewer and take into account quality of the restaurant’s food, ambiance and service. Ratings reflect the quality of what a diner can reasonably expect to find. To receive a rating of less than three stars, a restaurant must be tried twice and prove unimpressive on each visit. Each reviewer visit is unannounced and paid for by FLORIDA TODAY.

Five stars: Excellent. A rare establishment to which you’d be proud to take the most discerning diner.

Four stars: Very good. Worth going out of your way for. Food, atmosphere and service are routinely top notch.

Three stars: Good. A reasonably good place with food and service that satisfy.

Two stars: Fair. While there’s nothing special about this establishment, it will do in a pinch.